The story is
decent. The setup is interesting enough. Nothing groundbreaking, but it
doesn't
have to be. The premise of Corpse Princess focuses on the
"corpse
princesses" (Shikabane Hime); those who have died but retain some
semblance of
life and can maintain living in their bodies and fight rouge shikabane
who are
capable of turning into giant monsters or demon-like beings that wreck
havoc
and terror on others. That actually sounds like a lot, doesn't
it? The
corpse princesses can enter heaven and find a sense of peace by
destroying 108
of the Shikabane. They have the assistance of Buddhist monks who are
assigned
to guide one corpse princess. The battle between Shikabane and
Shikabane Hime
begins.

The lead
character is Makina Hoshimura, a teenage school girl who is killed and
becomes
a corpse princess. The series suggests that most of those who become
Shikabane
Hime are those who have regrets from the lives they did live - in this
case,
there are frequently girl Shikabane Hime who become corpse princesses
because
they died at a young age and did not have the opportunity to experience
life to
its fullest. Makina seems to be a gentle and nice person who happens to
be one
of these living-dead beings. She is kind to everyone but the corrupt
shikabane
who use their newfound powers to create chaos - for those, well, she
has a
machine gun or two that she likes to use to destroy 'em in typical
action-anime
ways. Makina wants to reach heaven by destroying the 108 Shikabane
necessary to
move forward. The series also focuses on a younger teenage boy who
wants to
help her and who is thrown into the situation without much
understanding of
what is going on at first. Over the course of the series it is revealed
that he
has a strong connection to the dead and he becomes a core character to
help
Makina through his own unique abilities.

The
animation manages to be one of the more positive aspects of the
production.
While the character designs rarely seem unique enough to be first-rate
material
the designs remain a nice touch to the foundations of the series
regardless:
Character designs are still distinctive. The series has many
highly-detailed
action sequences that seem to require great skill from the animators
and in
these moments the series find a way to excel as well. Artistically, the
background animation is one of the finest areas of impressive
craftsmanship and
there are so many different landscapes and settings used that the show
never
feels too repetitive in that regard.

One of
the
major setbacks of the storytelling is that the series repeatedly seems
to want
to reintroduce story ideas without introducing additional elements that
are
actually interesting. Several episodes are downright repetitive. Every
once in
a while an episode will be generally well made and entertaining and
then it
will be followed by several more episodes that do little to advance the
story.
The characters are also pushed aside, almost every time, and developed
far less
than they should be.

There
are
story flashbacks; back-stories that give audiences information about
characters,
but the emphasis always seems to be plot-related and not
focused on the characters
at all. This is detrimental to the series as these aren't characters
that are super
easy to connect to without much insight into who they are and
it makes everything
seem far more convoluted. Corpse Princess lacks clarity
and without
the ability to demonstrate a clear sense of what the series is even
supposed to
represent it winds up feeling like a mixed bag of unrelated sequences
of events
and characters with no clear line connecting the dots from one scene
going into
another: The end result is an unsatisfying, messy, and often incoherent
anime.

The
DVD:

Video:

The
picture quality on this release is pretty
consistent throughout. Color reproduction is decent (although the color
schemes
are frequently muted in style). Contrast is also quite impressive. The
image
does seem soft on occasion and there is a layer of grain or noise which
appears to have been added as a stylistic
decision for this series. It is not as clean looking as a transfer -
certainly not
as clean as it probably could have been without such added digital
effects and
yet the style accurately reflects the general vibe from this series. Corpse Princess: The Complete Series
presents all 26 episodes across four DVD discs and the original
broadcast
aspect ratio of 1:78:1 is preserved with an anamorphic widescreen 16:9
presentation.

Audio:

The
series has two audio options: the original
Japanese language dub tracks are in Stereo and the English language dub
version
is available in 5.1 surround sound. The dubbing isn't quite up to par
in comparison
to most of Funimation's offerings but the added dynamics of an
immersive audio
experience in surround sound easily outdoes the original language dub
option
aurally. Yet the dubbing does seem superior in the original language,
so fans
should want to check both options and see which version sounds more
suitable
for their long-term viewing of the show. English Subtitles are provided
for
viewing the series with the original audio.

Extras:

Extras
are pretty slim on this release. The biggest
highlight is a pair of commentary tracks included on the set. Episode
12
(located on Disc 2) and Episode 24 (located on Disc 4) are given the
commentary
treatment by the ADR director and some of the voice actors used in the
English
dub version. Personally, I don't find these commentary tracks that
insightful
or engaging but they might be worth listening to for fans of the
English
language dub and the voice-actors who helped to make that inclusion a
possibility.

Other
extras on the set include text-less opening
& closing credits for the various animation and songs used
throughout the
show (there was variety), and Funimation
trailers for recent and upcoming releases.

Final
Thoughts:

Corpse
Princess wasn't
an entirely successful
anime series. The animation was pretty good, and there were some
episodes that
managed to be entertaining and yet the majority of the time the series
wasn't
engaging and that was largely because of convoluted storytelling that
never quite
managed to recognize the importance of true character development over
more
action sequences that most viewers won't care enough about to remember.
Skip
It.

Neil Lumbard is a lifelong fan of cinema, and a student who aspires to make movies. He loves writing, and currently does in Texas.